If Statement not working in unity?

Hello, I am working on a little clicker game and was trying to make a little if statement that kicked the player if they got over a thousand clicks, so I decided to test it with the cap being 1 and it would not pick up that i’ve gotten over 1. Help!
Here is the code:

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;


public class Goodbye : MonoBehaviour
{

    eatACornDog eat;
    [SerializeField] GameObject Canvas;
    [SerializeField] GameObject UI_Main;
    [SerializeField] GameObject ShopMenu;
    [SerializeField] GameObject Accuse;

    void Awake()
    {

        eat = Canvas.GetComponent<eatACornDog>();

    }

    // Update is called once per frame
    void Update()
    {
       if (eat.corndogsEaten >= 1)
        {


            Debug.Log("you got kicked");


        }
    }
}

Insert a copy of line 29 above line 25. I bet that your Update() isn’t getting called at all.

Start looking for mechanical reasons this might be the case. Do you know for sure your variable has a value? Do your functions match other examples? Do you actually attach this component to an object? Is the object active? And so on.

What have you actually done to debug the issue you have? And what exactly makes you think that the only reason for the problems you have is that if statements may not work in Unity?

Have you tried the most obvious debugging step? Checking the value you use in your if statement?

void Update()
{
    Debug.Log("corndogsEaten == " + eat.corndogsEaten);
    if (eat.corndogsEaten >= 1)
    {
        // [ ... ]

So what does it print? If it doesn’t print anything there can only be 2 outcomes:

  • Either your code throws an exception because your “eat” reference may be null because there was no “eatACornDog” component on that Canvas.

  • If the code does not throw any errors, it’s either:

  • Your component or gameobject is disabled / deactivated so the script does not run at all

  • Or your component isn’t attached to any object in the scene, so of course your code would not run.

Here is a better way to test:

You must find a way to get the information you need in order to reason about what the problem is.

What is often happening in these cases is one of the following:

  • the code you think is executing is not actually executing at all
  • the code is executing far EARLIER or LATER than you think
  • the code is executing far LESS OFTEN than you think
  • the code is executing far MORE OFTEN than you think
  • the code is executing on another GameObject than you think it is
  • you’re getting an error or warning and you haven’t noticed it in the console window

To help gain more insight into your problem, I recommend liberally sprinkling Debug.Log() statements through your code to display information in realtime.

Doing this should help you answer these types of questions:

  • is this code even running? which parts are running? how often does it run? what order does it run in?
  • what are the values of the variables involved? Are they initialized? Are the values reasonable?
  • are you meeting ALL the requirements to receive callbacks such as triggers / colliders (review the documentation)

Knowing this information will help you reason about the behavior you are seeing.

You can also supply a second argument to Debug.Log() and when you click the message, it will highlight the object in scene, such as Debug.Log("Problem!",this);

If your problem would benefit from in-scene or in-game visualization, Debug.DrawRay() or Debug.DrawLine() can help you visualize things like rays (used in raycasting) or distances.

You can also call Debug.Break() to pause the Editor when certain interesting pieces of code run, and then study the scene manually, looking for all the parts, where they are, what scripts are on them, etc.

You can also call GameObject.CreatePrimitive() to emplace debug-marker-ish objects in the scene at runtime.

You could also just display various important quantities in UI Text elements to watch them change as you play the game.

If you are running a mobile device you can also view the console output. Google for how on your particular mobile target, such as this answer or iOS: https://discussions.unity.com/t/700551 or this answer for Android: https://discussions.unity.com/t/699654

Another useful approach is to temporarily strip out everything besides what is necessary to prove your issue. This can simplify and isolate compounding effects of other items in your scene or prefab.

Here’s an example of putting in a laser-focused Debug.Log() and how that can save you a TON of time wallowing around speculating what might be going wrong:

https://discussions.unity.com/t/839300/3

When in doubt, print it out!™

You were correct, my Update function was not being called at all.

Wow, I am really stupid, I just realized that the thing I’m running the script on is deactivated, thanks

BEHOLD THE MIGHTY POWER OF DEBUG.LOG()!!!

Imagine spending another few days working on code that isn’t even executing!

When in doubt, print it out. If it is just a few lines of code and a script, NUKE IT ALL, rewrite it.

Actually, I was using the script on an inactive gameobject, but thanks anyway!

And the Debug.Log() I suggested would print nothing, which would be a valid clue.

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